He stopped, and she could see his chest heaving, as though he’d run a mile, rather than been standing still.
“Is that it?” she said, infusing as much annoyance into her voice as she could, when all she wanted to do was go and hold him. “I’m this fragile little flower you have to protect from the vagaries of life?”
“You know I didn’t mean it that way...”
“Really? Because that’s how it sounded.”
That made him face her, and she saw the anger still shimmering behind his eyes.
“I am trying to protect you. Can’t you see that? I’m angry, Mina. Furious. And I just need a little time to get myself back together so I don’t explode. Can you give that to me?”
“No...” She shook her head, seeing his eyes widen, as though that were the last thing he expected. “I’m your friend, and I’m here to listen to you rage, to scream with you, if that’s what you want. To hug you, if you need me to. Keeping it all in won’t help, Kiah. It’ll only hurt.”
The look he gave her was incendiary, and made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. But there was no way she was backing down.
“I don’t want you to do any of those things.” It sounded as though his throat was tight, the words harsh. “I can manage this on my own.”
She nodded slowly, holding back the pain of his rejection, not letting it weaken her resolve.
“So as not to take it out on anyone else?”
“Yes! Dammit Mina, just leave me to it, won’t you?”
Instead of walking away, she stepped closer to him, saw the way he stiffened.
“You know you’re not your mother, don’t you?”
He stepped back, his head tilting away, as though she’d slapped him.
“What did you say?”
It was barely above a whisper, but he might as well have shouted it, for the emotional punch it packed.
“You’re not your mother, Kiah. You don’t hurt people because you’re angry. You don’t throw things, threaten people, lose your cool and intentionally say hurtful things. You have a temper, but you control it and, at times like this, you need to let the anger out with someone who cares, who understands and isn’t afraid to stand with you while you do.”
He stepped back again, the movement jerky, instinctive. She followed, keeping pace with him.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Really?” Mina stepped even closer, so they were only a couple feet apart. “I was there, at school, when you came in with that cut on your head. You told everyone you’d fallen, but I got you to admit your mother threw a bottle at you. I asked you what you did, when that happened, and you said you locked yourself in the bathroom. You didn’t hurt her back, although you could have, easily.”
“Mina...don’t.”
Again she ignored his pleading tone, knowing it all needed to be said.
“And when you were on the football field, senior year, and the opposing player was calling you nasty names, trying to get you to fight, I saw how angry you were, but you wouldn’t give in to it.”
“I destroyed a garbage can.” He said it as though making an important point, but she waved it off.
“After the game, outside, when it was just the two of us around. Did you hurt anyone? No, you didn’t. And there was the time in university, when those two guys jumped you. You fought back, but once they were down, you walked away. You could have kicked the hell out of them, but you didn’t.”
“Stop.”
He sounded so tired suddenly, beaten, but she wasn’t sure she’d gotten through to him yet.
“I’ll stop when I think you understand what I’m saying. The people who love you know the man you are. We’re not afraid of your temper, and while we love how protective you are, we don’t need you to feel as though you’re responsible for our lives, because you’re not.”
She moved closer, so as to put her hand on his arm, and his muscles, already tight, hardened even further under her fingers.
“And sometimes you have to accept that someone other than you is going to do the protecting. I was glad I was the one who made the decision about Charm today, so that you didn’t have to. I knew how much it would hurt you to have to agree to the lumbar puncture, how it would tear you up to see her go through it, so I did that for you, out of love.”
“I don’t like to see you hurting.”
“I know,” she said softly, raising her hand to place it against his cheek, meeting his still-anguished gaze. “But sometimes it’s inevitable, and you know that, as a human, a doctor, a man. You just have to accept it.”
Turning his head to kiss her palm, he closed his eyes, and her heart ached to see him so vulnerable.
He took a deep, shuddering breath. “What am I going to do without you, when you’re gone?”
Everything she felt for him swelled inside her, and she knew she had to find the courage to speak her truth, no matter the consequences.
“You don’t have to find out, if you don’t want to.”
In a blink she found her gaze captured by his, and the tenderness of the previous moments fled before the intensity in his eyes.
But he didn’t speak, didn’t ask what she meant, just froze, almost as though he’d even stopped breathing.
“I love you, Kiah, more than I ever thought I could love anyone, and I want to stay here with you. But you have to decide whether you want me to, or not.”
She almost stopped, too afraid to continue, but she was stronger now than she had been, and she needed him to know she accepted and loved him, just the way he was. So she inhaled and found the courage, even
